Douglas Anthony Cooper

Novelist, Photographer. Portfolio: www.dys.format.com

Douglas Anthony Cooper's first novel, AMNESIA, was longlisted for the Commonwealth Prize, and shortlisted for the WH Smith First Novel Award. For five years he was a Contributing Editor at New York Magazine, where he wrote and photographed most of the travel features. His writing and photography have appeared in Rolling Stone, Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure and The New York Times.

Cooper's travel photography was the subject of a feature in New York's PDN (Photo District News). In 2012, his exposé of PETA's shelter killing was a finalist for COPA (The Canadian Online Publishing Awards). He won the Lowell Thomas Gold Medal, America's most prestigious travel writing award, and has been collected in Best American Travel Writing.

Recently, Cooper partnered with illustrator Dula Yavne to publish GALUNKER, a children’s book about a pit bull, aimed at correcting misconceptions and teaching children how to be safe around dogs, regardless of breed. It was one of the most successful kids’ publishing projects in Kickstarter history, raising $62,000.

Cooper lives in Rome, but has collaborated with artists and architects around the world, on projects including video installations with Diller Scofidio + Renfro at the Venice Biennale, the Barbican, and the Whitney Museum. Cooper's collected writing can be found at DYSARM. His photography resides at DYSMEDIA.

Writing in The Jerusalm Post, Israeli Sharon Udasin quoted Nofar Gal, who lives near the border with Gaza: "The situation in the South has been very difficult not only for us humans but also for our pets." Predictably, her writing about an Israeli's pet dog triggered outrage in sensitive non-Israelis. The professionally sensitive -- liberal reporters -- were especially incensed.

This man who tortured animals, who hauled out their teeth without anesthetic, who hanged them and mutilated them -- has a puppy to call his own, and a seat at the table with the "leading anti-dogfighting group in the nation." Does the Humane Society of the United States have no decency?

I expect most people wouldn't send donations if they knew what the Humane Society of the United States actually was. It doesn't run any shelters. It has no veterinary clinics. A good deal of their funding comes from people who don't have the slightest idea of their real agenda.

I admire Wikipedia -- always have -- but how do the official gardeners at Wikipedia respond when they have a snake in their grass? In my case, a biased commenter is still an editor in good standing, but the people who pointed out his fraudulence have been mostly banned.

Nathan Winograd is the leader of the No Kill movement, a genuine revolution in animal welfare. Over three million healthy and adoptable pets will be killed next year in America's shelters. Not, however, if Winograd and his growing army have any say. I caught up with him a few weeks after the No Kill Advocacy Centre's annual conference in Washington D.C.

When the no-kill shelter in Shelby County, Kentucky recently announced that they had run out of space -- and were hence going to have to start killing healthy dogs and cats -- officials received a nice basket of gourmet cookies, with a note signed from PETA: "Thank you for doing the right thing."

People naturally assume that the animal rights movement is simply an extension of the human rights movement. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), however, is a political movement primarily focused on the right to determine when and how an animal should die. Those who donate to PETA are almost never aware of this.

Why is a so-called animal rights group willing to go to war over its right to kill healthy pets unnecessarily? "No Kill" -- defined as a euthanasia rate of not more than 10 per cent of a given shelter's pets -- has been achieved wherever it has been strictly implemented. Perhaps the most sickening aspect of PETA's assault on the No Kill movement is that it blocks groups from rescuing animals in high-kill shelters.

PETA may soon lose the right to kill healthy pets. Currently, the headquarters of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in Norfolk, Virginia kills 97 per cent of the animals delivered into its care. Norfolk, however, may soon pass legislation to make the city a "No Kill" zone.

Nobody is in a position to review David Frum's new novel, Patriots. You're either going to hate it for all the wrong reasons, or love it for all the wrong reasons. Set in D.C., the novel centres around Walter Schotzke, a likably louche trustafarian who is about to be swallowed whole by the populist right. Sound familiar? If so, it's because it is: Schotzke is no Frum, but there are clearly some autobiographical elements in this novel, thinly-veiled, and ready to deliver carnage to everything the ultra-right holds dear.

Bill Maher is pretty much the last person you'd expect to get sucked in by PETA, Ingrid Newkirk's cult of euthanasia. For Maher to uncritically cheerlead for one of the ugliest cults in America is truly disheartening. And, unlike most of the celebrity cults, PETA does real damage, on a gruesome scale.

Because I live in Mexico, I get to see The Avengers before you do. The jingoism is pitch-perfect. The nerd-bonding between Tony Stark and Bruce Banner will, I suspect, give rise to a tsunami of nerd-bonding around the world.

"Screw PETA," quoth Jennifer Lawrence, the actress of the moment. Although clearly a young woman with genuine courage, I suspect she is not quite prepared for the way she will probably be terrorized by the group in the months to come.

The ugly truth is this: The President has done a horribly responsible thing. He has forced his daughter to spend her spring break somewhere both safe and culturally significant. She's in significant danger of learning something. No wonder Obama's critics are annoyed.

I propose that Democrats demonstrate bipartisan moral support by sponsoring Mr. Limbaugh's next sexual adventure. An all-expenses-paid tour to the Dominican Republic, with unlimited -- and fully prescribed -- Viagra.

I admit to sneering when I first encountered the vast international community of flashlight addicts. Who are these losers, I generously wondered. These "flashaholics." Perhaps the nerd equivalent of, say, those neurally healthy folk who have sex with plush toys? Only less interesting?